Tuesday 5th May - First night in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

I had initially thought we might visit King Ludwig's Castle whilst on our way from the Black Forest to Garmisch-P.  Working out timings, tickets etc, we decided against it because of the 4 1/2 hour drive.  Instead, we made it a leisurely morning, leaving the site about 11.

Lake Titisee - mirror flat before the boat rides start.  Excellent view from this site. (Expensive tho')

Really pleased to see this Black Redstart perch in front of our van this morning. 

We planned to visit a supermarket on the way and found a Lidl right next to our route.  It had fresh milk (rather than the UHT stuff we'd found at the last place), which made Peter reeeeeally happy.   We also needed a place to stop and have lunch, and since we were driving alongside the Bodensee, where better?   The north shore of the Obersee Bodensee is in Germany, the south shore is in Switzerland.  

The shores of the Bodensee - this side Germany, Switzerland across the lake. 

As we approached our destination, the landscape changed. The Alps started to rise around us, and we began to be excited by the possibilities. 

I wasn't sure about our site when I'd looked down on it using Google maps.  I'd picked a "comfort" pitch to make sure we had plenty of room.  The pitch is massive and we are very pleased.  Not much grass about, but like the last site the showers are awesome, as are the pitch facilities.  And the view!

Drago on pitch at the Camping Resort Zugspitz

Very happy.

The view from our van, I think that is the Grosse Riffelwandspitze (which translates to Large Ridgewall Peak) that we can see. The Zugspitze, which is 190m higher, is behind it. 

Added bonus - we get to use the local buses and the train from Garmisch-P to Eibsee for free.  How cool is that?

😢But that night....... As we were planning on how to get to the Cogwheel train and cable cars that are all over the surrounding area I discovered that the ones I most wanted to use were closed for maintenance.  I was really angry at the website for not making that information more obvious. It wasn't on the website front page, or at the point where you bought tickets, and I actually found out by accident when I saw that one of the stations is closed.  I was so disappointed. I'd planned using those cable cars around the Zugspitze, and had become really excited at the thought.  It will take me a while to get over it.

So tomorrow we are going to have a look at the Parknachklamm (Partnach Gorge). We've worked out how to get there by bus and the weather forecast is OK, just a few showers expected.  The start of our mountain tour begins.